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Density matters: Review of approaches to setting organism-based ballast water discharge standards

By: , , , and 

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Abstract

As part of their effort to develop national ballast water discharge standards under NPDES permitting, the Office of Water requested that WED scientists identify and review existing approaches to generating organism-based discharge standards for ballast water. Six potential approaches were identified and the utility and uncertainties of each approach was evaluated. During the process of reviewing the existing approaches, the WED scientists, in conjunction with scientists at the USGS and Smithsonian Institution, developed a new approach (per capita invasion probability or "PCIP") that addresses many of the limitations of the previous methodologies. THE PCIP approach allows risk managers to generate quantitative discharge standards using historical invasion rates, ballast water discharge volumes, and ballast water organism concentrations. The statistical power of sampling ballast water for both the validation of ballast water treatment systems and ship-board compliance monitoring with the existing methods, though it should be possible to obtain sufficient samples during treatment validation. The report will go to a National Academy of Sciences expert panel that will use it in their evaluation of approaches to developing ballast water discharge standards for the Office of Water.

Suggested Citation

Reusser, D., Lee II, Ruiz, G., Frazier, 2010, Density matters: Review of approaches to setting organism-based ballast water discharge standards, xvi., 115 p.

Publication type Report
Publication Subtype Other Government Series
Title Density matters: Review of approaches to setting organism-based ballast water discharge standards
Series number EPA/600/R-10/031
Year Published 2010
Language English
Publisher EPA
Publisher location Oregon
Contributing office(s) Western Fisheries Research Center
Description xvi., 115 p.
Additional publication details